


Choo-Choo-Choose Your Actions Wisely

by Nebby_Webby



Category: Infinity Train (Cartoon), New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Clowns, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, THE TITLE IS DUMB BUT PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY :(, just bear with me here, ok the amasai comes later so just bear with me x2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22263106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebby_Webby/pseuds/Nebby_Webby
Summary: Thump. Thump. Thump.That was... his heartbeat, wasn't it?His heartbeat... because he was... alive?Interesting.He was Shuichi Saihara.He has a heartbeat.And he is, in fact, alive.[Infinity Train AU, no knowledge of this is series is needed however!]
Relationships: Amami Rantaro/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 17
Kudos: 20





	1. The Chapter Where Shuichi Almost Screams Himself To Death

**Author's Note:**

> choo choo
> 
> [forgive me if the formatting is off, ao3 reeeeeeeeeaaaaally pisses me off like?? it looks fine on google docs but on ao3 it looks like i use the enter key instead of the spacebar]

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

That was... his heartbeat, wasn't it?

His heartbeat... because he was... alive?

Interesting.

He was Shuichi Saihara.

He has a heartbeat.

And he is, in fact, alive.

Wait- if he wasn’t dead, why did he only see darkness-?

In a panic, the not-dead man shot up and opened his eyes. They quickly adjusted to the dim surroundings and he realized that he was in a subway. He did remember going to the station earlier that night but this… this one felt different. This station had no stairwells as far as he could see, it was illuminated by a pale green glow and coming from somewhere, he heard the sound of rushing water. Upon reaching the conclusion that he was taken to a strange place with little to no knowledge of how he got there, Shuichi did what any other professional detective would do: scream. 

To be placed in a purgatory such as this was a mighty rude thing for God to do in his opinion, and frankly he’d just like to go back to being dead. Though he supposes that if he ended up here, he never really died.

Whatever.

After an unspecified amount of time and screaming later, Shuichi decided to get up and explore the area. Unsurprisingly, it was still the same station, though he did figure out where the noise was coming from; there was a large river where the tracks should’ve been.

“Heya buddy! Need a lift?”

Cue more screaming.

“Haha! Now there’s a familiar sound, but uh. Are you alright?”

Within the waters there was a large alligator. Speaking to him. In a human voice.

“You uh. Look kinda pale, you’re not gonna pass out on me, are ya? Aha...ha…”

Shuichi simply shook his head, he couldn’t find any words to speak of, I mean an alligator? _Really?_

“Well okay! If ya say so! I was gonna ask ya about a lift earlier, but ya looked pretty busy screaming and crying and I didn’t wanna be rude.”

He gulped, but finally found the courage to speak,

“A lift to… wh-where exactly?”

“Well to the central city of course! Ya can only get there by swimmin’ so I thought I'd do ya a solid.”

Going off of the fact that there was no way Shuichi _wasn’t_ hallucinating due to bleeding out in some alleyway in a sketchy part of town, he agreed and crawled onto the reptile’s back. He will admit, this was quite the concoction his brain had stirred up. Eventually the city came into sight and it was about what Shuichi expected for a metropolis built by alligators. The buildings appeared to be made of scrap metal and there were no roads, just waterways. It _was_ a little impressive, but very ugly. (He really hopes this isn’t his new purgatory home) Soon they came to a sidewalk-like area that opened up into the city.

"So? How was the ride? Was I too rough? Too slow? did I take ya to the right place?"

He jumped and stumbled slightly in the water, for he had forgotten these crocodilia cretins could speak.

"Huh-? Oh yeah, I guess it was a pretty good ride."

His pant legs were utterly soaked but there's no way he's picking a fight with a 800lb lizard.

"Ya mean it? Wow, I've always wanted to start my own taxi service! Ya know I've lived here my whole life and I just kinda wanna make a difference to folks yanno? No charge, just a good chat and a good…"

Shuichi was starting to get a headache from all his rambling, he was _really_ reaching his limit here and he wasn’t sure how much he could take. Alas, death by alligator and drowning seem painful and as suicidal as he was, he was also had WABS (Weak-ass bitch syndrome) and would prefer a less painful method.

"Can you just tell me how to _leave?!_ "

"..But I'm not a real big fan of hot dogs- huh? Oh yeah, you can get to the next train car through that door."

He looked down the walkway to where the water-dweller was pointing (it can point?) and saw a small red door with a shining golden handle in the center of the door that resembled the shape of an… eight?

Wait. Train car? 

However, the talkative alligator had disappeared before Shuichi could interrogate him further.

Hesitantly, he went to the door and begun to feel along it in search of a doorknob since as far as he was concerned, there was none. The strange eight _did_ look like a handle but he pulled and pushed as hard as he could and nothing happened. After repeated attempts of man-handling the door to no avail and one fit of crying, Shuichi just slapped the handle. This, of course, was very painful since it was straight metal, however it _did_ make the handle turn slightly, progress at last! He coddled his left hand and moved the handle more with his right until it finally turned and he could push open the door. Briefly he noted that the handle _actually_ resembled an infinity sign, but that thought was quickly stopped once he took a look at the outside world. He was on a train, and the train was a lot larger than any he'd ever seen before, it looked to be at least 40ft tall as he was quite a ways from the ground and... the ground. There were no buildings, no trees, nor grass, just a desolate wasteland and a stormy yellow sky that looked unnatural. Some deeply-rooted primal fear of things long forgotten washed over Shuichi and he bolted into the next car. Thus, the detective continued his quest going through car after car for who knows how many nights and days. They all seemed to blur together: a puzzle that needed to be solved or a strange civilization of people to piss him off. Alright, that was a bit of an overstatement but Shuichi had gotten to the point where if he sees one more zany, unexplainable thing he'll throw himself onto the tracks below.

And he means that. This is it. This is the final car he's going through, whatever is behind the door in front of him decides whether he lives or dies. The detective takes a deep breath and pushes open the door.

It's a car full of beetles.

_Fuck it._

Shuichi runs into the room, most likely screaming (in hopes that it'll drown out the disgusting crunching noise), straight to the other side. Unfortunately, there's no door he can see as bugs are crawling over every square inch of this place. He closes his eyes and places his hand on the wall(?) and tries to feel for the door. Suddenly he feels something smooth- not living breathing beetle shell smooth, but a metallic smooth! He unlocks the hinge and throws open the door, praying to god none of those things will follow him as he dashes out straight into something else. There's a deafening slam from the train door behind him (thank God) but that only serves to startle the man more, 

"Ah-AHHH!!!"

"Aah?"

"Y-you're not a beetle!"

There, a messy haired man stood in front of the detective. He briskly looked himself up and down,

"You are correct, it does appear that I am in fact, not a beetle."

Shuichi sighed, finally another human!

"..Might I ask why you're so concerned over beetle people? Do I even _want_ to go through that door?"

"Ah, probably not..." 

The green haired guy chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck,

"Well anyway, I'm Rantaro Amami, it's nice to meet you! Especially since you're a human, you don't come across many of those here."

"Here? Where _is_ here?"

"Well uh," he gestures around him, "You're on a rather large train."

" _And?"_

"That's all I know."

Shuichi dropped to his knees and started to cry. Finally, _finally_ he's found another person after days of insanity and they know as much as he does! He just.. he just wishes he was dead. Honestly, being buried alive would _absolutely_ be more enjoyable that whatever cosmic bullshit this is. He… he deserves it most likely, but that doesn't mean he has to like it.

Well that escalated quickly, but Rantaro empathized with the guy at least, this _was_ a pretty distressing situation and who knows how long he's been on the train? What kind of things he's seen? If it's anything to go by, looking at his reaction of the last car, things have not been good. Gently he lowers himself next to the man and pats his back. It's a lame gesture, but he doesn't even know his name so it's all he can do. Slowly the sobbing turned to sniffles and Shuichi started to calm down enough to actually introduce himself to his companion.

"If you'd like, we could travel together, I've already been through a good chunk of the cars up ahead, so I can lead you through."

The detective nods and they head across to the next door. Upon its opening they were greeted by soft herbal scents and lukewarm waterfalls. Small trees that he didn't recognize dotted the landscape and the sky was a nice blue. Shuichi was just very excited to finally have a calming car, to say the least. No problems to be solved, just him, Rantaro, and these lakes made of tea. It was a bit uncomfortable to wade through warm water but at least it wasn't blood or something. The two soon stopped to properly rest and have a drink as they weren’t going to take free resources for granted. 

"I’ve been meaning to ask, what’s your number at? Mines 53, maybe we have the same one…”  
_Number? What was this guy talking about?_

Rantaro must’ve noticed his confusion as he reached over and carefully turned his left palm up. A familiar pale green hue greeted Shuichi’s eyes and he saw the number that Rantaro had mentioned:

**_257_ **

"Huh. Well at least you're only 204 off from mine!"

A glowing green number. On his hand.

_what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck._

"Actually, I don't know if that's good or bad. I've been trying to figure out what they mean for the past few months but I've gotten no answer."

Shuichi's body went rigid, he's joking, he must be. Rantaro is from a clown car just up ahead and Shuichi has stumbled into his travelling circus, that's all. Just another nonsensical test on this nonsensical train. No. _No._ he is NOT going to break down, this train will NOT best him. He, Shuichi Saihara, is being presented a _mystery_ and a Saihara does _not_ lose against dumb fucking trains. He’d solved cases before with even less evidence! He could do this! Shuichi exhaled through his nose and asked Rantaro about any info he had on the numbers. Surprisingly, he said yes, that a couple times throughout the train the number had gone up and down, but there was no correlation between his actions and the number as far as Rantaro was concerned. Disappointing, maybe but this was _good_ , this was new info! He has _something_ to go off of now, even if it wasn’t much. The numbers change, and that has to mean something right?

There was no point in mulling it over for any longer though and they got up and continued down the line. At each car Rantaro excitedly explained whatever was within it and what had happened the first time he entered. He seemed to love talking about his travels and Shuichi was eager to listen, from the way he spoke about it, he almost made the train sound _fun_. Perhaps he wouldn’t have had such a bad time if he just woke up on the train with Rantaro by his side in the first place. He was so involved with his thoughts, he didn’t even notice that his adventurous friend had stopped before the next car door. Rantaro was grinning and had quite the mischievous look in his eyes,

“Now this one? _This_ is my favourite car. I hope you like hiking because it is _full_ of some of the most glamorous mountains I've ever seen!”

Shuichi wasn’t much of an outdoors person, but he couldn’t help but feel excited too! Rantaro threw open the door and stepped inside, the detective followed suit and took a large gulp of that fresh mountain air.

It tasted sickly metallic and Shuichi started gagging at once, 

"Huh. This is…. Definitely a new car."

_Yeah, no shit Rantaro._

It was raining reptile limbs and the sound of squelching body parts echoed throughout the room.

Shuichi wanted to vomit.


	2. The Chapter Where They Almost Get Run Over By Clowns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honk

They’d been travelling around for about three weeks then. At least, that was Shuichi's guess. There was no way to tell time on the train, as the sun never set nor rose (was there even a sun?) on the outside of the train, and any sun you'd find on the inside most likely spoke and was inherently untrustworthy. For the first few days Shuichi used his watch or phone to tell time, but by that point both of them had stopped working (which was a little infuriating as the watch was a gift and very new). Rantaro had boarded the train with a backpack, so they were able to keep a small amount of supplies with them; mostly snacks and Rantaro's personal things. Apparently he boarded the train while travelling and said he thought it was a real one. Shuichi found that hard to believe, as he doubted Rantaro would mistake this train for a regular one, but at the same time he didn’t remember "boarding" this train either. But he knew he didn't mistake it for a different one. A train is a train and they'll hit you all the same.

...Either way, the pack was handy. It wasn’t necessarily hard to find food; it seemed every couple of cars there was something safe to eat (he wanted to say it was because the train didn’t want them to die, but it was too early to have hope like that), but sometimes when the car's puzzle was too hard it was nice to take a break.

The breaks were… nice. Shuichi enjoyed talking with Rantaro, but it had become less about his travelling stories and more about the train. It was an important thing to talk about, yes, but well… Shuichi was a bit of an escapist and would rather think about ruins in Peru instead of a death trap train. But the train was more preferable to speak of when Rantaro started asking him about his life. What did he say? He was a detective who hated his job? He was just so  _ mundane _ compared to Rantaro, and he was totally not worried Rantaro would leave him behind for being boring, but he just wanted to be at least a  _ little _ interesting in his eyes. (Why? What was the point?)

Shuichi sighed and tried to clear the negative thoughts out of his head. He had just woken up and was already ruining the day with his malicious thoughts. Today is a new day; they’d go through new cars and experience new things! There was no need to think about what was… just what the train will throw at you next. The duo shared a wordless meal and began the trek to the next cart at once.

This car was full of multicoloured tents and wooden booths with carnival games; it looked like one big circus. Clowns walked by with lions and tigers on leashes and gave a friendly honk, and fairy lights draped from above and filled it with a warm light, mingling with the rest of the atmosphere which smelt of greasy food and sweet churros. Experiencing this all immediately after waking up was a little nauseating but nothing that couldn’t be handled. The pair went and asked around to see if anyone had seen a red door, but the only answers they got were little squirts from flowers or an electric handshake. One clown even gave Shuichi a balloon hat to his dismay. 

Without warning, horns blasted from above and pattering feet were heard stomping towards them. Suddenly, a large group of clowns sporting tubas, trumpets, and many other instruments, came barrelling down the road along with several animals. It sounded absolutely atrocious, and the travellers quickly dipped out of the way.

Rantaro winced at the awful sounding noise. Was this their idea of a marching band? Yikes. Ah, it looked like Shuichi must've gone down a different path than him. It wasn’t like there was anything particularly dangerous around there though, and he figured the guy could handle himself just fine; Rantaro would focus on scoping out the exit. 

"Step right up kiddos! One mirror maze with a special prize at the end!"

"Special prize?"  _ Man, this train makes things too easy sometimes. _

"Yup! A lovely red door!"

So the exit was through there, huh? He'd just take a peek through the maze and then go find Shuichi. Rantaro walked up the steps into the maze and looked around, in the light all the mirrors are easily seen and-

_ SLAM _

Well now, this was most definitely not going to be as quick as he had hoped. Once the door was shut, it was completely dark other than the faint glow of his hand. The frames of the mirrors had disappeared, and it just looked like an inky void full of other versions of himself. At least he still had his sense of touch.  _ Time to blindly wander through a maze! _

  
  


After running away from the posse of jesters, Shuichi took a moment to regain his bearings. It shouldn't have been that difficult to find Rantaro, he was the only person in that entire place whose skin wasn't a dusty chalk-white! In fact, the traveller's skin was quite the opposite. Darkened by his travels and adorned with freckles, Rantaro was much more attractive than those clowns. Speaking of clowns, another seemed to have found him.  _ Sigh _ .  _ What prank will it be this time? _ He didn’t trust the bucket they were holding. 

_ “Nishishishi !” _

And down came the water on his head. The rude clown cackled and dashed off, leaving Shuichi to only catch a glimpse of his appearance- purple hair. Shuichi, of course, sped off after him as was his detective nature. He doubted there were laws on the train, but that wouldn’t stop him from capturing that joker and giving him a piece of his mind. He put up a pretty good fight, taking sharp turns, dashing into crowds; he did everything he could to get the detective off of his tail, but no dice! The clown must not have known the car as well as he thought he did and rammed straight into a tent, tangling himself with it on impact. 

"I...I ha..ave you noow.." Shuichi wheezed out, trying to sound as confident as he could be while hunched over and gasping for air. (Sure he was good on his feet, but only to a certain point. It's not his job to chase criminals, y’know?)

Despite his loss, the clown looked rather excited, grinning like a cheshire and snickering as the detective struggled.

"So? What are you going to do with me now,  _ detective _ . Gonna rough me up? Take me to solitary confinement? Hah! I plead the fifth, bootlicker."

"What? No- that's not even how the fifth works!"

"But of course that's how it works! Look, I even have a signed note from the Head of Clowns..."

The boy rummaged around his jacket and pulled out a crumpled note with childish writing drawn in purple crayon. Upon closer inspection it read:

**_“I do what I want._ **

**_-Kokichi Ouma”_ **

  
  


"...I see."

"Well? Are you gonna let me go or not?"

"Uh, Kokichi was it? Anyway, I just wanted to ask why you poured water on me. I get that you're... a clown, but most of the pranks here haven't been so… aggressive."

"I'm a vicious clown. I was born with a rare, incurable form of rabies, you see. It's very sad!"

"You're not gonna give me a real answer, are you?"

"Nope!"

Shuichi figured his time would be better spent somewhere else, and despite Kokichi's cries for help in the background, he kept walking. There were more important things to investigate, like some of the attractions and a certain number of his.

  
  


Meanwhile, Rantaro was having no luck getting out of the mirror maze. It had gotten to the point where his reflection didn’t even look human anymore. Rantaro swore he'd seen several of the reflections blink at different intervals than his own. It raised the question if they were sentient or not, and as curious as Rantaro was, he did not want answers. Now, he wasn’t  _ scared _ or anything. Just uncomfortable with the situation at hand. Being trapped in a room with only yourself, only able to move further into the reflective abyss...

Heh. One might say he was getting lost in himself.

The joke did not make him feel better. 

Rantaro sighed aloud. No one was coming to help him, of course, and sitting around there moping and making stupid mirror puns wouldn't do anything either. He had to think of a way out other than wandering around blindly. Nothing he had on hand would help, his phone had died ages ago, and he hadn’t found any other form of flashlight since. It was just him, his thoughts, and his twelve thousand reflections. Just as it had always been, Rantaro was alone and could only rely on himself.

Well, not always.  _ But now's not the time to think about that. _

Wait... himself…?

It seemed silly, but it was an idea, and the only one Rantaro had at that. He squatted next to a mirror and knocked three times on it before speaking.

"Do you know the way out?"

His reflection looked at him for a few seconds, then stood up and pointed back to the way he came, with all the other mirrors following suit.

Not bad, not bad at all! He never, EVER wanted to see his reflection again, but Rantaro still thanked them all and waved goodbye. (Which also felt silly, but he  _ had  _ just asked himself for directions.) Soon, he arrived at the start of the maze, and the door was shut. Figured, but that clown was still on the other side, right? Rantaro knocked harshly on the door and asked to be let out, but the clown just laughed and said that that was the entrance.

“Yeah, I’m aware that this is the start. Why do you think I came here? Let me out. I’m tired of this maze.”

"Well you shoulda thought of that before you went in puuhuhu! Mazes are meant to be explored, so go forth adventurer!"

Alright. Now he was just mildly pissed off.

"Who are you talking to?"

Huh? Was that Shuichi?  _ Oh no- do NOT get yourself involved with- _

"The other passenger, of course! He’s trying our maze. Would you like to join him? It's a mirror maze, admission is free, and there's even a priiiize at the ennnnd!"

"Oh, um s-sure?"

_ SHUICHI NO!! _

  
  
  
  


"Well now at least we're together?"

_ As if that'll make a difference.  _ Shuichi didn't even have any baggage upon entering the train in the first place, so there was no way he'd have something to help them. He knew he was just being a downer, but the maze was really starting to squick him out...

"What if we used our numbers?"

"It’s a nice thought, but I already tried that. They're too dim."

"But what about mine?"

"Shuichi, I really don't think-"

Shuichi grabbed Rantaro's hand and brought it up to his own, interlocking their fingers enough to be holding hands, but not completely closed. What came of it was a light bright enough to see the frame of the mirrors. How… intriguing.

"When did your number become 71?"

"Huh?"

Oh. It had definitely gone up. Not like it hadn’t happened before, but Shuichi was so fixated on it. This  _ was _ the first time it had happened around him though.

"What were you doing when it went up?"

"Uh, I dunno? I haven't really been paying attention to it."

The detective hummed and cupped his hand over his mouth as if deep in thought (Now that was a classic detective pose; what a stereotype! At least he didn’t wear the stupid hats. Though he was currently wearing a hat made of balloons, so it was a little hard to take that pose seriously.) 

"Rantaro, earlier you said that you had tried my idea already and that there was nothing I could do, but that turned out to not be true, right? I  _ did _ end up helping you."

"Ah, true. There's no way I could make it through this maze without you… I needed your help."

His hand clicked and the numbers spun like a slot machine and landed on… 69? They went down?

"Ah hah! I was right!"

"Right about what, what did you do?"

"I think the numbers react to certain actions of ours. Mine went up earlier too," he held up a 249. "But I couldn't find the person who made it go up… I wanted to apologize. So this theory is pretty weak as we only have your hand to go off of, but it's still something!"

Aw. Rantaro swore the elated look he had on his face was brighter than any flashlight. If he got that excited he must not solve any cases that often, poor guy.

"That's great and all, but can we leave this maze? I'm getting really tired of the dark."

"Oh! Ahaha, right. Sorry, Rantaro!"

After an hour or so, they got to the end of the maze with only minor injuries (mostly on Shuichi's part, as he kept running into mirrors and dragging Rantaro into the fall) and were met with a doorway covered in silk curtains. As they had no other choice, through the silky curtains they went and were met with a wall of prizes, another clown, and a red door.

"Hey, congrats! You can pick out a prize and leave now."

Finally, they could leave, Rantaro was a lot more sick of that car than he should’ve been. He slid the handle of the door down, but noticed that Shuichi wasn’t by his side.

"...What are you doing?"

"Picking out a prize…? They said we could, after all."

He laughed, his youngest sister was the same way; she absolutely refused to leave until she got whatever her heart was set on.

...

Shuichi wiggled a stuffed orca next to his face. “So how’s this little guy? He’s small and perfect to carry along with us! The third member of our exploration team, haha!”

“Ah, that’s great. Guess we’re off now.”

Without even looking to see if Shuichi was following him, Rantaro left the cart. Had he said something wrong? Was it the third member joke? He wasn’t… he wasn’t jealous of an orca was he?? Hm.  _ Don’t talk to Rantaro about orcas, noted for later. _

After that small bout of... Whatever that was, things were relatively normal until two carts down when Shuichi felt a sudden slap on his back as someone hung over his and Rantaro's shoulders. "So where we off to, boys?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"It's that clown from earlier!"

"Shuichi, that cart was  _ full _ of clowns, you'll have to be more specific."

They flung the intruder off of their backs and faced him, Shuichi looking especially pissed. "I highly doubt you're here to apologize for the bucket thing, so what do you want?"

"Entertainment,  _ duh _ . I'm bored of the clown car, and I've decided to come with you two!"

Rantaro and Shuichi just awkwardly looked at each other. They didn't want to say  _ no _ , but the guy didn't seem very trustworthy. The farthest thing from it, really. And his appearance didn’t help either. Stringy hair, large gloves that went up to his elbows, and half washed off clown face paint which gave him a very "haunted clown that eats all your face meat and calls you a bitch" kind of look. 

"I don't know what you two are defensively standing around for; regardless of whether you say yes or no, I'm coming along."

Guess that was that. At least now they had someone to push into a monster's maw if need be.

"Oh, but wait- I wanted to know, when you got tangled in that tent… Why did you call me a detective? How did you know?"

"Weeeeell, if you reeeaaally wanna know…. I've been stalking you two for the past week!"

"You  _ WHAT- _ ?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 69 was a placeholder number but. I forgot to change it. and so it stays. enjoy your feral clowns, lads. also i've given up on formatting, i'm so so sorry

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time writing rantaro so i am super sorry if i botched him. anyway yeah this has just been an au that's been on the brain so i hope its enjoyable to whomever reads it. i will do my best to not take 3 years to post a second chapter. this is super niche but i hope i can bring a good story to the table.


End file.
